Frankly, before the 2008 campaign McCain was a pretty reasonable Republican. I didn’t agree with him on everything, but he stood up to Bush about torture, helped push through the McCain Feingold act, and generally governed somewhere right-of-center but well to the left of the wingnuts. During the campaign, though, he was forced to take a number of hard-right stands to keep the base energized, not the least of which was picking a nut like Palin as his running mate. The left’s opinion of McCain changed because McCain changed.
Not necessarily. The political center isn’t the average of who runs - it’s the average of who gets elected.
The Republicans, by going conservative and self-marginalizing themselves, are allowing the Democrats to take power as a moderate-liberal party. So the center of the Democratic Party has moved right but the center of the country has moved left.
Indeed. If the McCain of today could appear on The Daily Show as casually as the McCain of 2007, he’d be a serious contender still. Instead, he lunged to the dark side and there’s no way back.
Great post, BrainGlutton. On the topic of Obama being good for conservatives (and that the Bush-Cheney Administration should have been the best thing that ever happened for liberalism) let me repeat a link to the
This Modern World cartoon, also found at salon.com.
I thought Republicans disparaged “blame the victim” prattle. (And, BTW, I do wonder what you are “recovering” from?)
Funny, I thought they liked blaming the victims, except on those occasions when they were claiming to be the victims.
I thought it was the average (or median) of public opinion.
Not really. Public opinion decides who gets elected but it doesn’t enact laws and make court decisions.
Hm. Well, if you define the “center” in terms of public opinion, then, looking at the Pew Political Typology, I would put it about where the Post Moderns are. Where would it fall, I wonder, if the survey group were limited to elected officials?
Far too often, “moderate” is a fake, a disguise for apathy and/or an inability to choose, or simply a refusal to choose. Democracy is not the most efficient form of government, it is not the most progressive, nor is it the most conservative, it is simply the most just. And the price is high, the price is placing all power in the hands of people who may or may not deserve it, preserve it, or even truly desire it. In a word, us. In three words, We, the People. It is the determination to be ruled by a vast mob of fools rather than an elite cadre of fools.
And you have to trust it, you have to have a secular faith, without even a magical sky pixie to underwrite it, only your trust in people who have clearly demonstrated that they are not nearly as smart as you. We live in interesting times. Keep the faith, baby.
Nobody is in favor of mob rule (your words), not even the mob. The US is a republic in which one function of government is to prevent the mob, or anyone else, from taking away people’s natural rights.
As to the OP, I think the way debate is conducted by the establishment has led to polarization. I don’t mean Shields versus Brooks on the PBS Newshour, I mean organizations paying bloggers, commenters, demonstrators, etc. to provoke the other side and turn debates into exchanges of insults, “gotchas”, the scandal of the day, and presenting extreme examples as typical and vice versa when it suits you. Example: if you think illegal immigrants should be able to become citizens, you’re a traitor, but if not, you’re a racist. No middle ground. At least that’s how it is online.
:rolleyes: Please don’t ever use that fatuous phrase again.
We prefer to be called libtards.
The 2010 election was mostly won due to turnout differences, that is my understanding. Conservatives tend to fare better in midterms, in 2010 they were more motivated than liberals and moderates, and people tend to vote against one party rule (which we pretty much had at the time).
The election of 2012 should be slightly dem in my view because turnout will be more even across the board.
I think the main advantage of democratic government is it’s the form of government that is most subject to correction.
Which makes it the form of government most stable and resilient. (Not that it never self-destructs, but compare it to all the others.)
I identify as a liberal now, rather than as a moderate, because the conservatives have shifted too far to the right, so that what was previously in the middle is now on the left.
When I’m (slighly) more liberal than the Democratic candidate, I can’t in good conscience call myself moderate.
Reagan wouldn’t win a GOP nomination now for over a dozen reasons. People like Ford and Nixon would be center left now.
I wonder how far it is going to go in this direction. Income inequality is becoming a serious issue, I don’t know how much longer large percentages of hte public will support conservative economic policy.
Uh, have you ever read the Declaration of Independence? You do know what they mean by “certain unalienable rights,” don’t you?
Just because Jefferson and the Continental Congress bought into the concept of “natural rights” – or purported to, for political purposes – does not make it any less bullshit.